“I borrowed from all, without any exception.
I am sewn between ancestry and posterity.
I am a drop of water in a flowing river of time;
a molecule in a mountain;
a cell in a great family tree.”
Oliver Wendell Holmes

First Encounter

Wednesday, the sixth of December [1620]. It was resolved our discoverers should set forth…So ten of our men were appointed who were of themselves willing to undertake it, to wit, Captain Standish, Master Carver, William Bradford, Edward Winslow, John Tilley, Edward Tilley, John Howland, and three of London, Richard Warren, Stephen Hopkins, and Edward Doten, [...]

The Hardy Family

“Thomas Hardy . . . was one of the first twelve who planted the settlement of old Ipswich on the Essex shore of New England. He was born in England, and was brother of John Hardy, the only other early settler of Massachusetts Bay colony. Rev. Mr. Perry in his anniversary sermon at Bradford, Massachusetts, [...]

Man Overboard

One fateful day, John Howland was tossed into the sea from aboard the Mayflower during a fierce storm and bravely survived! Had he not, I’d hate to think where I’d be today . . . I would not.
Governor William Bradford (ancestor of my husband and children) described the incident as follows (1st in old English, [...]

Mayflower Connection

John Howland, signer of the Mayflower Compact, lived to be the last (male) pilgrim who had come to Plymouth, MA on the Mayflower in 1620. He was in his 20’s at the time. One fateful day, John Howland was tossed into the sea from aboard the Mayflower during a fierce [...]

His Ladye Love

The year 1717 “is rendered memorable, by the unusual quantity of
snow, which fell on the twentieth and twenty-fourth of February.
In these two storms, the earth was covered with snow, from ten to
fifteen feet, and, in some places, to twenty feet, deep. Many one-
story houses were covered, and, in many places, paths were dug,
from house to [...]